Von den zahllosen Vorstellungen, die heute dem öffentlichen Reden über Natur zugrundeliegen, gehört die aristotelische Naturbegrifflichkeit zweifellos immer noch zu den einflußreichsten. Während in der Tradition des aristotelischen Denkens Natur und Technik zwei verschiedene Seinsweisen bezeichnen, verwerfen die Naturwissenschaften jede substantielle Unterscheidung zwischen den beiden Sphären. Die zunehmende Technisierung der Welt macht zudem einen Begriff problematisch, der im wesentlichen das von humanen Eingriffen Ungestörte subsumiert. Kann das öffentliche Verständnis, soweit es aristotelisch geprägt ist, die Tendenz zur Veränderung und Ersetzung von (...) Natur durch Technik überhaupt noch angemessen erfassen? Dieser Frage möchte ich auf zwei Ebenen nachgehen. Zum einen setze ich die aristotelische Unterscheidung von Natur und Technik weitestgehend als Dichotomie voraus, sehe von ihren lebensweltlichen Bezügen ab und konfrontiere sie exemplarisch mit einigen, teils schon vollzogenen, teils zu erwartenden Verschiebungen im Verhältnis dieser beiden Sphären. Insofern die Binnenperspektive der Individuen außer Betracht bleibt und es sich vornehmlich um Prozesse handelt, die die Grundlagen der materiellen Lebensverhältnisse betreffen, könnte man von der „gesellschaftlichen Ebene“ sprechen. Im Ergebnis zeigt sich ein spezieller, zunehmend verengter Kontext, in dem die Entgegensetzung noch sinnvoll Anwendung findet(I). Zum anderen rekonstruiere ich die aristotelische Begrifflichkeit im Horizont eines lebensweltlichen Verständnisses. Hierbei werde ich weniger von einer wechselseitigen Ausschließung der beiden Sphären ausgehen als von der Annahme, daß Natur und Technik die gegenüberliegenden Ränder eines Übergangsfeldes von Zuständen bezeichnen, in denen beide gleichsam gemischt enthalten sind. Die begrifflichen Hilfsmittel für diese Vermittlung finden sich bei Aristoteles selbst. Es handelt sich um die Individuationsprinzipien Stoff und Form, die in ihrer Anwendung auf die Definition von Natur eine differenziertere Wahrnehmung des Technischen gestattet. (shrink)

The extra-therapeutic use of psychotropic drugs to improve cognition and to enhance mood has been the subject of controversial discussion in bioethics, in medicine but also in public for many years. Concerns over a liberal dealing with pharmacological enhancers are raised not only from a biomedical–pharmacological perspective, but particularly from an ethical one. Within these ethical concerns, there is one objection about the normative differentiation between “natural” and “artificial” enhancers, which is theoretically indeed widely discredited in bioethics, which (...) has, however, entrenched itself in such a persistent way in everyday moral consciousness that it keeps a crucial influence on the assessment of pharmacological enhancers made by the public and medical professionals. This paper tries to first show why a normative differentiation between “natural” and “artificial” enhancers is highly problematic. In a second step, the resulting implications for our current dealing with pharmacological enhancers shall be examined. In a specific comparison of synthetic pharmaceuticals (modafinil, SSRIs) with phytopharmaceuticals (ginkgo biloba, St. John’s wort) and other already established enhancers (alcohol, caffeine), argumentative inconsistencies are pointed out which, at least partly, result from a rationally untenable preference for the “natural” over the “artificial”. Therefore, it is conclusively argued the case for an unprejudiced assessment of pharmacological enhancers beyond a “natural”–“artificial” dichotomy, which equally takes into account biomedical and ethical aspects. The goal is to reach a coherent dealing with pharmacological enhancement in the long run. (shrink)

The article is devoted to the description of the differences in the conceptualization of space observed in informants, large language models and computer vision models capable of generating a text describing what they “saw”. We use the concept of a cognitive agent and substantiate the distinction between “natural vs artificial cognitive agent”: the first is understood as a person, the second is an AI model capable of making decisions and performing tasks adequately in a given situation. The aim (...) of the study is to compare the ways of understanding the location of an object in space in natural cognitive agents and artificial cognitive agents of two types: large language models and models created for Image to Text task. The main methods are the method of linguistic experiment and the method of semantic description based on the theory of topological semantics by L. Talmi. As an incentive material, six paintings from the collection of the State Hermitage Museum were used, divided into three groups: portraits, monofigure paintings on mythological or religious themes, and multifigure compositions. The participants of the experiments were: 63 informants (Mean age = 19.1, 48 females, 15 males), 5 LLMs, 6 Image to Text models based on computer vision technology and capable of generating descriptions of recognized images in English. Using the typology of configurational topological schemes and “figure – background” type schemes, we compared the ways of understanding space that the models rely on. As a result, we have formulated a number of conclusions, the most important of which is that natural cognitive agents differ from artificial cognitive agents in its ability to integrate the process of conceptualization of an object in space into other cognitive processes: entity recognition and categorization, attention mechanisms, awareness of cause-and-effect relationships. Artificial cognitive agents are only learning such integrativity and mutual coordination, for example, when generative models conceptualize those objects in which they are not sure, since these are products of hallucination, as objects with fuzzy boundaries, and Image to Text models combine into a single heterogeneous human object and the most striking original detail of its environment, because they “believe” that this is the most important thing for description tasks. (shrink)

This study analyzes predominant themes and disciplinary and methodological trends in academic integrity and misconduct research. It utilizes bibliometric analysis to explore prevalent themes and interdisciplinary intersections within discussions based on Scopus metadata. R Studio, which uses _biblioshiny_ software, is employed to visualize trends. The results indicate the presence of 769 final documents (627 on academic integrity and 142 on academic misconduct) related to the research focus up to 2023. Visual representations show complex relationships and theme changes. The analysis uncovers (...) connections between academic integrity and misconduct, emphasizing criteria such as plagiarism and the misuse of artificial intelligence (AI) tools. Distinct thematic clusters emerge, showcasing diverse dimensions and the impact of AI on misconduct. Interconnected research endeavors underscore dominant themes like cheating and ethical considerations. Thematic evolution reflects shifts from integrity-misconduct dichotomies to emergent issues like online fraud. Disciplinary contributions highlight the interdisciplinary nature of the discourse, drawing insights from social sciences, medicine, arts, business, psychology, and computer sciences. The detailed systematic literature review and survey design, which are dominant in research on academic integrity and misconduct, help build audience confidence. Some insights into academic integrity and misconduct via typical categories or terms have also been illustrated for the insightful reader. (shrink)

The dichotomy between the qualitative and the quantitative has been a classic throughout the history of science. As will be seen, this dichotomy permeates all ontological levels of reality. In this work, phenomenological examples potentially related to semiosis are presented at the different levels established by Mario Bunge and Josep Ferrater Mora, contrasting the qualitative categorizations with the quantifiable physical reality. Likewise, the need to continue in the quantification of the biosemiotic and linguistic studies will be presented, while, (...) in contrast, the need to establish a qualitative framework in the little-addressed study of technosemiotics will be raised, of potential interest given the notable advances that are expected in communication systems for inert artifacts in the next years. In short, in the thesis defended here the qualitative precedes the quantitative in the defining path of science. (shrink)

Social robots are robots that can interact socially with humans. As social robots and the artificial intelligence that powers them becomes more advanced, they will likely take on more social and work roles. This has many important ethical implications. In this paper, we focus on one of the most central of these, the impacts that social robots can have on human autonomy. We argue that, due to their physical presence and social capacities, there is a strong potential for social (...) robots to enhance human autonomy as well as several ways they can inhibit and disrespect it. We argue that social robots could improve human autonomy by helping us to achieve more valuable ends, make more authentic choices, and improve our autonomy competencies. We also argue that social robots have the potential to harm human autonomy by instead leading us to achieve fewer valuable ends ourselves, make less authentic choices, decrease our autonomy competencies, make our autonomy more vulnerable, and disrespect our autonomy. Whether the impacts of social robots on human autonomy are positive or negative overall will depend on the design, regulation, and use we make of social robots in the future. (shrink)

The topic of this contribution is the tension between the everyday dichotomy of nature and technology and the nanotechnological understanding of the world. It is essential to nanotechnology that nature and technology not be categorically opposed as the manmade and the non-manmade, but rather regarded as parts of a structurally identical whole. After the introduction, I will address three points: In a brief first section I will formulate a few questions and a thesis about the nanotechnological developments that can (...) be expected to come. In the main section I will assess four aspects of everyday understanding of nature and technology that are used to legitimate nanotechnology. Finally I will discuss whether an everyday understanding of nature can be conceived as a critical authority with respect to the nanotechnology program. (shrink)

How is knowledge of geometry developed and acquired? This central question in the philosophy of mathematics has received very different answers. Spelke and colleagues argue for a “core cognitivist”, nativist, view according to which geometric cognition is in an important way shaped by genetically determined abilities for shape recognition and orientation. Against the nativist position, Ferreirós and García-Pérez have argued for a “culturalist” account that takes geometric cognition to be fundamentally a culturally developed phenomenon. In this paper, I argue that (...) when understood as moderate versions supported by the state-of-the-art research, the nativist and culturalist views are in fact possible to reconcile. While Ferreirós and García-Pérez present the work of Spelke and colleagues as implying that geometric cognition is genetically determined, I argue that they fail to appreciate the role that Spelke and colleagues see for cultural factors. On this basis, I provide theoretical and terminological clarifications and show that moderate versions of the nativist and culturalist view are in fact consistent with each other. I then propose a unifying theoretical framework for future study that can integrate the two accounts in ontogeny by moving beyond the crude nature (nativism) vs. nurture (culturalism) dichotomy. (shrink)

Artificial agents, particularly but not only those in the infosphere Floridi (Information – A very short introduction. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2010a), extend the class of entities that can be involved in moral situations, for they can be correctly interpreted as entities that can perform actions with good or evil impact (moral agents). In this chapter, I clarify the concepts of agent and of artificial agent and then distinguish between issues concerning their moral behaviour vs. issues concerning their (...) responsibility. The conclusion is that there is substantial and important scope, particularly in information ethics, for the concept of moral artificial agents not necessarily exhibiting free will, mental states or responsibility. This complements the more traditional approach, which considers whether artificial agents may have mental states, feelings, emotions and so forth. By focussing directly on “mind-less morality”, one is able to by-pass such question as well as other difficulties arising in Artificial Intelligence, in order to tackle some vital issues in contexts where artificial agents are increasingly part of the everyday environment (Floridi L, Metaphilos 39(4/5): 651–655, 2008a). (shrink)

The paper examines a dichotomy between special access accounts of authoritative self‐knowledge and constitutive accounts that treat such authority as a feature of the ‘grammar’ of self‐ascriptions, and concludes that it is a false one. Firstly, special access theories are shown to include not just Cartesian views but also a number of different kinds of accounts of the nature of mental states and our self‐knowledge of them. One group comprises functionalist accounts—special access theories, which involve non‐Cartesian conceptions of the (...) individuation of conditions of mental states, and need make no play with any form of ‘inner perception’. Secondly, it is argued that there is space for intermediate theories according to which ‘grammar’ and empirical regularities collaborate inextricably to hold our actual mental state concepts together, and play a joint role in explaining the reliability of our basic self‐ascriptions of mental states. Finally, it is shown that all viable concepts of mental states, which can be competently self‐ascribed in a non‐inferential way, must be multi‐criterial concepts and not wholly fixed by ‘grammar’. (shrink)

When asking fundamental questions about education, philosophers have not shied away from giving radical answers. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, for example, who found himself disenchanted with the artificiality and pride that he encountered in 18th century Paris, advocated a laissez faire education in the countryside. Such an “education by nature,” Rousseau thought, would keep children at bay from morally corrupt society and would allow them to become authentic and sincere persons. Similarly concerned with moral education, in the early 20th century the American (...) pragmatist John Dewey argued that experiential learning in socially diverse settings would be crucial for nourishing democratic culture. Being a pragmatist, Dewey also maintained that educational philosophy should always concentrate on solving practical difficulties of contemporary social life, instead of dealing with idle intellectual puzzles. In this spirit, oriented towards educational practice, several philosophers of education and educational theorists have recently turned their attention to the ways in which education might help solving some of the pressing problems arising from globalization. This special issue of Global Justice: Theory Practice Rhetoric assembles the latest scholarship of some these philosophers and theorists on the topic of “Global Justice and Education” – a topic which until recently has been curiously neglected within the academic literature on global justice. Alejandra Boni (Technical University of Valencia) and Diana Carolina Velasco (University of Ibagué) analyze how power asymmetries in global knowledge production can give rise to epistemic injustices and explored how academics can collaborate with civil society actors to fight such injustices. Johannes Drerup (Technical University of Dortmund and Free University Amsterdam) responds to the postcolonial critique that global citizenship education is Western-centric by arguing that the dichotomy of “the West vs. the Rest” is outdated and that the critical study of colonialism should be part of global citizenship education. Juan Espíndola (National Autonomous University of Mexico) criticizes that low fee private schools in many developing countries often times do not provide an adequate education, and that global philanthropists should therefore be more careful in their support for these schools. Lindsey Schwartz (University of Wisconsin-Madison) discusses a number of problems that students living abroad face because two central principles of educational justice that are usually taken for granted at the national level either systematically overlook or exacerbate their problems. These two principles are the principle of educational adequacy and the presumption of responsibility on the part of a host country for meeting children’s educational needs. Due to their inappropriateness under conditions of globalization and, in particular, transnational migration, Schwartz demands a cosmopolitan revision of the first and a replacement for the second with a focus on collective responsibility. Finally, Danielle Zwarthoed (Catholic University of Louvain) critically examines the proposal that education for autonomy could be conceived of as a global educational aim, and points out that not only do non-Western cultures endorse the ideal of autonomy, but also that autonomy increasingly gains practical value in a world in which mobility is ubiquitous. -/- All paper drafts except that of Lindsey Schwartz have been subject to intensive debate during the two-day international workshop on “Global Justice In and Through Education,” held at the American University of Paris (AUP) on November 29 and 30, 2018. The international workshop was hosted by the Center for Critical Democracy Studies (CCDS) and was generously funded not only from the CCDS but also from the German Research Foundation (DFG). (shrink)

The concept of ontogenetic niche is used here to interpret how species-typical behaviors develop through active, context-dependent processes. Ontogenetic niches typically include social stimuli, such as those arising from parents, siblings, and others that provide 'nurturing' in the form of resources, stimulation, and affordances for development. This approach is a useful alternative to wrestling with artificial dichotomies such as nature-nurture.

Does the human mind resemble the machines that can behave like it? Biologically inspired machine-learning systems approach “human-level” accuracy in an astounding variety of domains, and even predict human brain activity—raising the exciting possibility that such systems represent the world like we do. However, even seemingly intelligent machines fail in strange and “unhumanlike” ways, threatening their status as models of our minds. How can we know when human–machine behavioral differences reflect deep disparities in their underlying capacities, vs. when such failures (...) are only superficial or peripheral? This article draws on a foundational insight from cognitive science—the distinction between performance and competence—to encourage “species-fair” comparisons between humans and machines. The performance/competence distinction urges us to consider whether the failure of a system to behave as ideally hypothesized, or the failure of one creature to behave like another, arises not because the system lacks the relevant knowledge or internal capacities (“competence”), but instead because of superficial constraints on demonstrating that knowledge (“performance”). I argue that this distinction has been neglected by research comparing human and machine behavior, and that it should be essential to any such comparison. Focusing on the domain of image classification, I identify three factors contributing to the species-fairness of human–machine comparisons, extracted from recent work that equates such constraints. Species-fair comparisons level the playing field between natural and artificial intelligence, so that we can separate more superficial differences from those that may be deep and enduring. (shrink)

This essay discusses how medieval authors from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries dealt with a philosophical problem that social institutions pose for the Aristotelian dichotomy between natural and artificial entities. It is argued that marriage, political community, and language provided a particular challenge for the conception that things which are designed by human beings are artefacts. Medieval philosophers based their arguments for the naturalness of social institutions on the anthropological view that human beings are political animals by (...) nature, but this strategy required rethinking the borderline between nature and art. The limits of nature were extended, as social institutions were considered to be natural even though they are in many ways similar to artificial products. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Second-Order Cybernetics as a Fundamental Revolution in Science” by Stuart A. Umpleby. Upshot: While I agree with most of the thrust of second-order cybernetics, I find the dichotomy of first- vs. second-order cybernetics conceptually and historically problematic because it implicitly conflates the cybernetics of nonhuman systems with realist conceptions of observer-free science. The dichotomy may be divisive and unhealthy for cybernetics by driving natural scientists and engineers out of the movement, thereby (...) undermining the universality of its principles. (shrink)

Empathy is often split into an affective facet for embodied simulation or sometimes sensorial processing, and a cognitive facet for mentalizing and perspective-taking. However, a recent neurophenomenological framework proposes a graded view on empathy (i.e., “Graded Empathy”) that extends this dichotomy and considers multiple levels while integrating complex neural patterns and representations of subjective experience. In the current magnetoencephalography study, we conducted a multidimensional investigation of neural oscillatory modulations and their cortical sources in 44 subjects while observing stimuli that (...) convey vicarious pain (vs no-pain) in a broad time window and frequency range to explore rich neural representations of pain empathy. Furthermore, we collected participants’ subjective-experience of sensitivity to vicarious pain, as well as their self-reported trait levels of affective and cognitive empathy to examine the possible associations between neural mechanisms and subjective experiences and reports. While extending previous electrophysiological studies that mainly focused on alpha suppression, we found here four significant power modulation patterns corresponding to multiple facets of empathy: an early central (peaking in the paracentral sulcus) alpha (6–11 Hz) suppression pattern plausibly reflecting sensory processing, two early beta (15–23 Hz) suppression patterns in the mid-cingulate cortex (plausibly reflecting the affective component) and in the precuneus (plausibly reflecting the cognitive component), and a late anterior (peaking in the orbitofrontal cortex) alpha-beta (11–19 Hz) enhancement pattern (plausibly reflecting cognitive-control inhibitory response). Interestingly, the latter measure was negatively correlated with the subjective sensitivity to vicarious pain, thereby possibly revealing a novel inhibitory neural mechanism determining the subjective sensitivity to vicarious pain. Altogether, these multilevel findings cannot be accommodated by the dichotomous model of empathy (i.e., affective-cognitive), and provide empirical support to theGraded Empathyneurophenomenological framework. Furthermore, this work emphasizes the importance of examining multiple neural rhythms, their cortical generators, and reports of subjective-experience in the aim of elucidating the complex nature of empathy. (shrink)

Researchers studying the psychology of concepts frequently draw distinctions between artificial and natural concepts. Unfortunately, there is a lack of consensus regarding the foundations and implications of the distinction. This paper provides a review and evaluation of the different ways researchers have approached the question of conceptual naturalness. Accounts may be divided into 2 approaches described as psychologically or externally based. These characterizations motivate distinctive sets of research questions. In addition to the particular implications, the author also considers (...) the general significance of a distinction between natural and artificial concepts. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

As discussões contemporâneas em teoria democrática estão marcadas pelo debate acerca da crise da representação. Importa a tal discussão ressignificar a tensão entre participação e representação, o que, a meu juízo, pode ser elaborado a partir da chave da deliberação. Ou seja, uma antiga tensão entre modelos representativos e participativos estaria superada. Restaria, portanto, redefinir os sentidos da representação, cuja análise, no campo da teoria democrática, foi dominada durante boa parte do século XX por teóricos schumpeterianos ou neoschumpeterianos. Tal orientação (...) intelectual tem como pressuposto fundamental interpretar o fórum à luz das categorias forjadas pelas ciências econômicas para examinar as interações no mercado. Grosso modo, a oposição fórum e mercado foi estruturada a partir da tensão entre os seguintes pares conceituais: argumentação pública vs. barganha, deliberação vs. agregação e, no limite, racionalidade comunicativa vs. instrumental. No texto a seguir, tenho por objetivo recuperar duas concepções articuladas pelos utilitaristas clássicos: os princípios da harmonia natural vs. identificação artificial dos interesses, cujas definições podem contribuir na compreensão de temas subjacentes àquele das discussões contemporâneas. Indicarei como o primeiro princípio apresenta-nos uma representação do arquétipo do social como mercado ; o ideal duma sociedade automática onde interesses concorrentes e conflitantes são harmonizados exclusivamente a partir de barganhas particulares cuja natureza revelar-se-á incompatível com uma concepção forte de representação política. Palavras-chave: Princípios da identidade natural e artificial dos interesses. Teorias econômicas da democracia. Mercado político. (shrink)

Levelt, reviewing the AGL field from a psycholinguistic perspective, identifies various gaps and makes a number of concrete suggestions for improving several currently used experimental designs. He raises the question whether artificial (and natural) grammar learning is about detecting ‘rules’, as is commonly assumed, or rather the detection of a set of ‘constraints’. He cautions the community to not ignore ‘semantics’, and recommends to consider less artificial tasks, that may be needed for learning more complex rules by (...) human or nonhuman animals. (shrink)

Believing that the enterprise of constructing "artificial intelligence" transcends the bounds of any one discipline, the editors of Mechanical Bodies, Computational Minds have brought together researchers in AI and scholars in the humanities to reexamine the fundamental assumptions of both areas. The AI community, for example, could benefit from explorations of human intelligence and creativity by philosophers, psychologists, anthropologists, literary critics, and others, while analysis of AI's theoretical struggles and technical advances could yield insights into such traditional humanist concerns (...) as the nature of rationality and the mind-body dichotomy.The contributions include a continuation of the famous Hubert Dreyfus-Daniel Dennett debate over Kasparov's defeat by IBM's Deep Blue; Philip Agre's tracing of difficulties in AI research to the inherited tensions of Cartesian dualism; Evelyn Fox Keller's examination of the development of computer technology in relation to biology; Douglas Hofstadter's argument that thinking is more than the theorem-solving activities of AI; and Alison Adam's discussion of the implicitly male universal subject used in AI. (shrink)

In recent years, increasingly advanced artificial intelligence (AI), and in particular machine learning, has shown great promise as a tool in various healthcare contexts. Yet as machine learning in medicine has become more useful and more widely adopted, concerns have arisen about the “black-box” nature of some of these AI models, or the inability to understand—and explain—the inner workings of the technology. Some critics argue that AI algorithms must be explainable to be responsibly used in the clinical encounter, while (...) supporters of AI dismiss the importance of explainability and instead highlight the many benefits the application of this technology could have for medicine. However, this dichotomy fails to consider the particular ways in which machine learning technologies mediate relations in the clinical encounter, and in doing so, makes explainability more of a problem than it actually is. We argue that postphenomenology is a highly useful theoretical lens through which to examine black-box AI, because it helps us better understand the particular mediating effects this type of technology brings to clinical encounters and moves beyond the explainability stalemate. Using a postphenomenological approach, we argue that explainability is more of a concern for physicians than it is for patients, and that a lack of explainability does not introduce a novel concern to the physician–patient encounter. Explainability is just one feature of technological mediation and need not be the central concern on which the use of black-box AI hinges. (shrink)

Comme de nombreux penseurs antiques avant et après eux et contrairement à Socrate, Calliclès et Diogène ont déclaré avoir fondé leur éthique sur l’observation de la nature. Et pourtant, les deux discours normatifs qui sont tirés d’une nature que l’on pourrait a priori croire être la même sont on ne peut plus opposés. Calliclès croit que l’homme est appelé à dominer autrui ; Diogène pense plutôt qu’il doit se dominer lui-même ; le premier est un hédoniste débridé, le second croit (...) que le bonheur ne s’achète qu’au prix du sacrifice des désirs artificiels. Comment expliquer cette dichotomie ? Nous empruntons deux routes explicatives. D’abord, nous montrons que pour Calliclès et Diogène, la notion de nature non seulement diffère, mais est observée sous un angle différent. La première est celle des tyrans et de dieux anthropomorphes, la seconde, celle de petits animaux et de dieux autarciques. La première concerne la relation des hommes entre eux ; la seconde, celle de l’homme avec lui-même. Ensuite, nous exposons la différence des présupposés normatifs qui précèdent ou accompagnent l’observation de la nature ; nous contrastons, pour ce faire, les formes d’anticonventionnalisme et d’anti-intellectualisme défendues par Calliclès et Diogène. -/- SUMMARY. Like many ancient thinkers before and after them and contra Socrates, Callicles and Diogenes said they based their ethics on the observation of nature. And yet, the two normative discourses that are derived from nature that we might a priori believe to be the same could not be more opposed. Callicles believes that people are called to dominate others, Diogenes rather thinks people must dominate themselves. The first is an unbridled hedonist, the second believes that happiness can be bought only at the price of sacrificing artificial desires. How to explain this dichotomy? We take two explanatory routes. First, we show that for Callicles and Diogenes, the notion of nature not only differs but is observed from a different angle. The first one is the nature of tyrants and anthropomorphic gods, the second that of small animals and autarkic gods. The first focuses on the relationship between people, the second focuses on the relationship of a person with themselves. Secondly, we expose the difference in normative assumptions that precede or accompany the observation of nature; in order to do so, we contrast anticonventionalism and anti-intellectualism forms proper to both Callicles and Diogenes. (shrink)

The issue of human nature is very complex and elusive, and mankind has been trying to unveil its elements since the beginnings of any philosophical reasoning. Whether they were questions of ontology, gnoseology, or ethics, it has been an uneasy task to uncover the complexity of the term. This article concentrates on finding ideas that support the existence of human nature and consequently searches for its possible ethical implications. I focused on the traditional issues of good vs evil, especially in (...) terms of dichotomy between committing violent acts and waging wars in contradiction to creation of conditions for peaceful and just societies. In the article, I compare various ideas on human nature and analyse their potential in unveiling its ethical implications. I also comment on the possibility of war and peace being consequences of human nature and its connection to our disposition of being moral subjects. (shrink)

After the middle of the twentieth century, symptoms gradually appeared which were collectively called the “crisis of medicine”. This crisis gave philosophy, which had been abstracted from medicine since the mid-nineteenth century, an opportunity to reflect. Medical philosophers attributed the crisis to the inflation of the scientific and technical aspects and, consequently, to the weakening of the human aspects of medicine. Therefore, reflection on the nature of medicine became one of the central issues of philosophy in medicine.In this article, I (...) will first highlight the need to study the nature of medicine, explain the various concpetions of the nature of modern medicine - based on the dichotomy- science vs. art, and show their inadequacy and inappropriatness. Finally, I will provide a model to the nature of medicine beyond the realm of science / art. In this model, medicine is a scientific practice, based on judgment, dialogue, communication and social order. This model faces teleological, epistemological, scientific, political, and professional challenges that require serious and continuous reflection on the nature of medicine. (shrink)

What will be the posthuman society? As usual, there are two prospects: the pessimistic view and the optimistic view. According to pessimistic view, as technologies advance emerge new beings called as transhuman with enhanced intelligence and physical power, and extremely long lifespan and they will dominate humans. On the other hand, according to optimistic view, technology will benefit humans, so humans evolve via transhuman to posthuman with smart machines. There are complex issues tangled together in the dispute between the rival (...) views, especially such as the natural vs. artificial beings, human dignity and equality, and meaning of life. The aim of this article is to examine being and relation in posthuman age in the point of Nietzsche’s philosophy. I examine transhuman as a typical being of posthuman age and ressentiment as its relation respectively. Nietzsche has influenced the rise of transhumanism and posthumanism, as can be seen from direct or indirect confessions from pioneers of them, though there are debates about whether the influence is real or superficial. By paying particular attention to Nietzsche’s idea of Master and Slave, ressentiment, and Overman (Übermensch), I contend that (a) in the posthuman age new classes will emerge, which correspond to Master and Slave, (b) there will be a new ressentiment of Slaves toward their Masters, and (c) Overman as a creator of new value will be required in order to solve the problem by ressentiment. (shrink)

Due to huge advancements in natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning, chatbots are gaining significance in the field of customer service. For users, it may be hard to distinguish whether they are communicating with a human or a chatbot. This brings ethical issues, as users have the right to know who or what they are interacting with (European Commission in Regulatory framework proposal on artificial intelligence. https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/regulatory-framework-ai, 2022). One of the solutions is to include a disclosure at (...) the start of the interaction (e.g., “this is a chatbot”). However, companies are reluctant to use disclosures, as consumers may perceive artificial agents as less knowledgeable and empathetic than their human counterparts (Luo et al. in Market Sci 38(6):937–947, 2019). The current mixed methods study, combining qualitative interviews (n = 8) and a quantitative experiment (n = 194), delves into users’ responses to a disclosed vs. undisclosed customer service chatbot, focusing on source orientation, anthropomorphism, and social presence. The qualitative interviews reveal that it is the willingness to help the customer and the friendly tone of voice that matters to the users, regardless of the artificial status of the customer care representative. The experiment did not show significant effects of the disclosure (vs. non-disclosure). Implications for research, legislators and businesses are discussed. (shrink)

Logic is usually presented as a tool of rational inquiry; however, many logicians in fact treat logic so that it does not serve us, but rather governs us – as rational beings we are subordinated to the logical laws we aspire to disclose. We denote the view that logic primarily serves us as logica serviens, while denoting the thesis that it primarily governs our reasoning as logica dominans. We argue that treating logic as logica dominans is misguided, for it leads (...) to the idea of a “genuine” logic within a “genuine” language. Instead of this, we offer a naturalistic picture, according to which the only languages that exist are the natural languages and the artificial languages logicians have built. There is, we argue, no language beyond these, especially none that would be a wholesome vehicle of reasoning like the natural languages and yet be transparently rigorous like the artificial ones. Logic is a matter of using the artificial languages as idealized models of the natural ones, whereby we pinpoint the laws of logic by means of zooming in on a reflective equilibrium. (shrink)

Given the contemporary ambivalent standpoints toward the future of artificial intelligence, recently denoted as the phenomenon of Singularitarianism, Gregory Bateson’s core theories of ecology of mind, schismogenesis, and double bind, are hereby revisited, taken out of their respective sociological, anthropological, and psychotherapeutic contexts and recontextualized in the field of Roboethics as to a twofold aim: the proposal of a rigid ethical standpoint toward both artificial and non-artificial agents, and an explanatory analysis of the reasons bringing about such (...) a polarized outcome of contradictory views in regard to the future of robots. Firstly, the paper applies the Batesonian ecology of mind for constructing a unified roboethical framework which endorses a flat ontology embracing multiple forms of agency, borrowing elements from Floridi’s information ethics, classic virtue ethics, Felix Guattari’s ecosophy, Braidotti’s posthumanism, and the Japanese animist doctrine of Rinri. The proposed framework wishes to act as a pragmatic solution to the endless dispute regarding the nature of consciousness or the natural/artificial dichotomy and as a further argumentation against the recognition of future artificial agency as a potential existential threat. Secondly, schismogenic analysis is employed to describe the emergence of the hostile human–robot cultural contact, tracing its origins in the early scientific discourse of man–machine symbiosis up to the contemporary countermeasures against superintelligent agents. Thirdly, Bateson’s double bind theory is utilized as an analytic methodological tool of humanity’s collective agency, leading to the hypothesis of collective schizophrenic symptomatology, due to the constancy and intensity of confronting messages emitted by either proponents or opponents of artificial intelligence. The double bind’s treatment is the mirroring “therapeutic double bind,” and the article concludes in proposing the conceptual pragmatic imperative necessary for such a condition to follow: humanity’s conscience of habitualizing danger and familiarization with its possible future extinction, as the result of a progressive blurrification between natural and artificial agency, succeeded by a totally non-organic intelligent form of agency. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Two Different “Religious Experience vs Psychopathology” DistinctionsAwais Aftab, MD (bio)Mohammed Rashed’s analysis of the distinction between “religious experience” and “psychopathology” challenges the assumptions that underlie traditional efforts to make such a distinction and he arrives at a provocative and memorable conclusion: “The distinction between religious experience and mental disorder can only be invoked from a secular standpoint but can only be clarified from a religious standpoint. In other words: (...) if you have the grounds to invoke it, you cannot have the tools to clarify it; and if you have the tools to clarify it, you do not have the grounds to invoke it” (Rashed, 2024). (For another recent discussion that challenges underlying assumptions of this dichotomy, see Gipps and Clark (2024) on the distinction between religious delusion and religious belief.)There is great merit in Rashed’s analysis, and I am in agreement with many aspects of the discussion. In particular, I admire Rashed’s ability here, as well as elsewhere (Rashed, 2021), to break the impasse of definitional debates by deconstructing and destabilizing the distinctions involved. In this commentary I’d like to note some points of disagreement and qualification that I hope can move Rashed’s analysis forward in a constructive way.The first thing I want to bring up is that Rashed defines religious experience very broadly: “Psychological distress or anomalous experience that has a religious origin, content, or end (purpose).” This effectively turns the distinction between religious experience and psychopathology into an instance of the general distinction between the religious worldview and the secular worldview. “Mental disorder” is understood by Rashed to be an exclusively secular concept. I am not sure this way of framing the dichotomy is entirely correct. If our notion of “religious experience” include any anomalous experiences believed to serve a religious purpose, then Rashed is correct that for the religious no anomalous experience would be excluded. And if “mental disorder” requires giving up on the idea of a divine purpose for our [End Page 211] suffering, then indeed the religious do not have the grounds to invoke it.I’d suggest that a better approach may be to think of two different “religious experience vs psychopathology” distinctions, one within the context of the religious worldview and one within the context of the secular worldview. Both are fuzzy and present demarcation problems of their own; both can be and ought to be destabilized.Rashed recognizes that the religious worldview does make space for illness and disease; it’s just that he says even these concepts are understood within a broader religious view of suffering:the proposal is not that religious traditions have no category of distress that is somatic in nature—of course they do—but that even with those categories, religion is never far off the horizon and will make an appearance at some point, if not in the origin or content of distress, then in terms of its broader purpose and so the recommended interventions.(Rashed, 2024, pp. 201)A vital implication of this is that the distinction between religious experience and a secular view of somatic illness would pose the same problem as the distinction between religious experience and mental illness; the religious would not have grounds to invoke it, for no illness is devoid of religious significance. And yet, the religious do meaningfully talk of “illnesses” and “diseases,” and they do meaningfully talk of “madness” (if not mental illness), and many often do meaningfully differentiate between madness and mysticism. This shows that the religious worldview has its own notions of disease and psychopathology, which differ from their secular counterparts in the sense that suffering involved is imbued with a divine purpose. The religious scholars interested in differentiating between the anomalous nature of the mystical experience and the anomalous nature of madness are interested, in part, in marking out abnormalities of thought and behavior so severe that they come to resemble the effects of somatic illness. Madness is where the internal coherence of the mystical experience breaks down, and becomes an instance of suffering at par with somatic illness.The secular worldview recognizes the phenomenology of religious experience—there is religious or mystical content—but... (shrink)

Given the contemporary ambivalent standpoints toward the future of artificial intelligence, recently denoted as the phenomenon of Singularitarianism, Gregory Bateson’s core theories of ecology of mind, schismogenesis, and double bind, are hereby revisited, taken out of their respective sociological, anthropological, and psychotherapeutic contexts and recontextualized in the field of Roboethics as to a twofold aim: (a) the proposal of a rigid ethical standpoint toward both artificial and non-artificial agents, and (b) an explanatory analysis of the reasons bringing (...) about such a polarized outcome of contradictory views in regard to the future of robots. Firstly, the paper applies the Batesonian ecology of mind for constructing a unified roboethical framework which endorses a flat ontology embracing multiple forms of agency, borrowing elements from Floridi’s information ethics, classic virtue ethics, Felix Guattari’s ecosophy, Braidotti’s posthumanism, and the Japanese animist doctrine of Rinri. The proposed framework wishes to act as a pragmatic solution to the endless dispute regarding the nature of consciousness or the natural/artificial dichotomy and as a further argumentation against the recognition of future artificial agency as a potential existential threat. Secondly, schismogenic analysis is employed to describe the emergence of the hostile human–robot cultural contact, tracing its origins in the early scientific discourse of man–machine symbiosis up to the contemporary countermeasures against superintelligent agents. Thirdly, Bateson’s double bind theory is utilized as an analytic methodological tool of humanity’s collective agency, leading to the hypothesis of collective schizophrenic symptomatology, due to the constancy and intensity of confronting messages emitted by either proponents or opponents of artificial intelligence. The double bind’s treatment is the mirroring “therapeutic double bind,” and the article concludes in proposing the conceptual pragmatic imperative necessary for such a condition to follow: humanity’s conscience of habitualizing danger and familiarization with its possible future extinction, as the result of a progressive blurrification between natural and artificial agency, succeeded by a totally non-organic intelligent form of agency. (shrink)

Discussions about naturalness, artificiality and unnaturalness in this article are motivated by the field of Human Cognitive Enhancement (HCE) because of its potential for altering human personality and identity. This article at first proposes a concept of human naturalness as interaction between physis and logos. Then it presents an intuitive understanding of naturalness in terms of the inherent inability of language to fully describe all attributes of an object that is natural. The analytical core of the article proposes a (...) formal model of naturalness utilising Vopenka's phenomenologically grounded Alternative Set Theory (AST), comprising and formalising the concept of natural infinity. A brief introduction to AST is presented as well. Naturalness and artificiality are modelled as two structurally different naturally infinite semisets within AST. This key structural difference is then analysed and applied back to the domain of HCE. (shrink)

It is necessary to realize first of all that the concept of culture is founded upon two closely related dichotomies: that between the natural and artificial and that between the chaotic and the orderly. In its most primitive signification, culture means simply the imposition of an exquisite order upon the raw givenness of experience. In this sense, nature represents the immediacy of need, culture its formalization. Man may be "a rational animal," as Aristotle said, but in possessing the (...) rational potential which he intermittently actualizes, he never ceases to remain an animal grounded immediately in hunger, lust, and the multiple instances of natural desire. Plato waged a never-ending struggle against the lawless outbreak of the natural appetites, and his efforts to curb, discipline, and form them is a primitive paradigm of the activity of culture. Man's capacity for thought and reason, for sociality and humane consideration has made him a sculpture-building animal and has made it possible for him, as Cassirer said, to live in a symbolic universe which he has himself created. But while his basic reality is not physical but cultural and spiritual, his anchorage forever remains that of nature and of animal need. The measure of culture is, therefore, a measure of artistic transformation. Albert William Levi is the author of The Idea of Culture, of which this essay is a part. The David May Distinguished University Professor of the Humanities at Washington University, St. Louis, he is the author of Philosophy and the Modern World; Literature, Philosophy and the Imagination; Humanism and Politics; and Philosophy as Social Expression. His "De interpretatione: Cognition and Context in the History of Ideas" appeared in Critical Inquiry, Autumn 1976. (shrink)

The article is an attempt to uncover the metaphysical assumptions implicit in the otherwise highly scientific contemporary identity theories. 1) the identity statement, Being a philosophical interpretation of dualistic psychophysical correspondence, Requires for its support a justificatory ontological or linguistic premise. 2) the conception of the mental as the hidden, Unobservable, Subjective and private is a metaphysical distortion with historical roots in an empiricist and positivist interpretation of the cartesian dichotomy of thinking and extended thing. 3) acceptance of an (...) artificial dichotomy and reliance on a narrow conceptual framework lead identity theorists to misrepresent the nature of the mental-Physical relation and to see ontological reductionism as the only solution. 4) alternative explanations are possible which bypass the shortcomings mentioned and propose the irreducibility of mind to body without postulating a dualistic ontology; merleau-Ponty's and wittgenstein's theories are good examples of an ontological monism which allows for the reality and meaningfulness of the mental within the scope of the physical. (edited). (shrink)

Debate concerning virtual reality is often drawn in terms of sharply defined dichotomies--for example, between "real" (or "actual") and "virtual," "authentic" and "inauthentic," and "natural" and "artificial." In this paper we offer an alternative approach by suggesting a conception of a virtual world that highlights a continuity and commonality with our sense of everyday reality. We accomplish this in part by an examination of the English picturesque garden as if it were a virtual world partially constructed out of (...) ideas and objects collected during travels to foreign lands on the Grand Tour. Such foreign travel transformed not only the English person's sense of self, but also altered the English landscape. We conclude that in one sense the "real" England is also a "virtual" reality. (shrink)

The effectiveness of place-based education in inspiring care for natural and local environments, improving academic performance, dispelling with artificial dichotomies, and grounding philosophic discourse is supported by research whose results have been published not only concerning elementary and alternative settings, but collegiate ones as well. However, very little if any reporting has been done on its effectiveness in formal logic. Given the foundational nature of logic and its tendency to fulfill general education requirements, this is unfortunate. Though I (...) am persuaded it takes more than pedagogical magic wands to inspire self-driven student success, reflections on and examples of the actual constructions of a collegiate level introductory logic course that uses place-based curricula that also boasts some general statistical reassurance seems worth sharing. And, much to my own enjoyment, “sharing” provides me with an opportunity to describe a well-received extra credit opportunity involving a nationally recognized on campus tree tour. (shrink)

In On the Genesis of Thought and Language, linguist Alexey Koshelev explores fundamental questions of how human concepts arise in a child, why concepts appear in a child before words, the genesis of language, and why there are so many languages. Chapter One introduces the fundamental dichotomy "visual (exogenous) vs. functional (endogenous)" cognitive units; these units are used to give non-verbal definitions of mental representations of various objects, actions, and situations. In particular, definitions of such concepts as GLASS, CHAIR, (...) BANANA, TREE, LAKE, RUN, and some others are given. Chapter Two discusses how children form concepts, hierarchical relationships, and propositions (conceptual 'utterances'). It is shown that the initial units of the child's representation of the world are pre-conceptual cognitive units--mental representations of whole situations. In the course of two consecutive cycles in the child's cognitive development, these units transform into (a) primary notions--object and motor concepts, and (b) binary role relationships. Together, they constitute the elementary language of thought which, in the process of thinking, is used to build conceptual structures--propositions. It is further demonstrated that, immediately after the formation of thought, the child begins to develop his native language in which concrete and motor concepts become initial meanings of nouns and verbs, while propositions become the meanings of the child's expressions. The chapter concludes with a contrastive analysis of the proposed approach and Aristotle's and Chomsky's views on thought and language. Chapter Three analyzes how a community's culture affects its language. It is demonstrated that the progress of a community, the main constituent of the civilizational component of its culture, enhances the development of the content component of language by extending the range of its lexical and grammatical meanings. In the context of this analysis, Daniel Everett's (2008) hypothesis that culture affects language structure is discussed. In the subsequent sections, models of the development of human and social activity are offered. These models comprise three components: Activity (main component), Thought, and Language (auxiliary components that ensure the successful realization of activities). The models are illustrated with examples of some concrete societies. (shrink)

Artificial Intelligence and algorithms are increasingly able to replace human workers in cognitively sophisticated tasks, including ones related to justice. Many governments and international organizations are discussing policies related to the application of algorithmic judges in courts. In this paper, we investigate the public perceptions of algorithmic judges. Across two experiments (N = 1,822), and an internal meta-analysis (N = 3,039), our results show that even though court users acknowledge several advantages of algorithms (i.e., cost and speed), they trust (...) human judges more and have greater intentions to go to the court when a human (vs. an algorithmic) judge adjudicates. Additionally, we demonstrate that the extent that individuals trust algorithmic and human judges depends on the nature of the case: trust for algorithmic judges is especially low when legal cases involve emotional complexities (vs. technically complex or uncomplicated cases). (shrink)

The dispute between individualism and anti-individualism is about the individuation of psychological states, and individualism, on some accounts, is committed to the claim that psychological subjects together with their environments do not constitute integrated computational systems. Hence on this view the computational states that explain psychological states in computational accounts of mind will not involve the subject''s natural and social environment. Moreover, the explanation of a system''s interaction with the environment is, on this view, not the primary goal of (...) computational theorizing. Recent work in computational developmental psychology (by A. Karmiloff-Smith and J. Rutkowska) as well as artificial agents or embedded artificial systems (by L.P. Kaelbling, among others) casts doubt on these claims. In these computational models, the environment does not just trigger and sustain input for computational operations, but some computational operations actually involve environmental structures. (shrink)

Show more ▾ There are various dichotomies in Kant’s philosophy: sensibility vs. rationality, nature vs. freedom, cognition vs. morality, noumenon vs. phenomenon, among others. There are also different ways of mediating these dichotomies, which is the systematic undertaking of Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgment. One of the most important concepts in this work is the sublime, which exemplifies the connections between the different dichotomies; this fact means the concept’s construction is full of tension. On the one hand, as (...) a pure reflection of aesthetic judgment the sublime must be without interest or purpose, but on the other hand it is “based on the concept of reason” (KU AA:292). On the one hand, the sublime “represents merely the subjective play of the powers of the mind (imagination and reason) as harmonious” (KU AA5:258), but on the other hand, reason “exercises dominion over sensibility” and the imagination is “purposively determined in accordance with a law” of reason (KU AA5:268f). Taking into account these problems concerning the essential definition the sublime, this paper will first illustrate how the sublime embodies the a priori principle of aesthetic judgment through contrasting the judgment of the sublime with the judgment of taste in order to establish a basic logical frame for the judgment of the sublime. Second, this paper redefines the boundary between the mathematically and dynamically sublime in order to reveal both the coexistence of contemplation and movement within the sublime and the unrevealed function of reason and imagination. Finally, contrasting the sublime with moral feeling, this paper elaborates the turning-structure (from sensibility to rationality and from object-intuition to idea-exhibition) of the sublime. (shrink)

With increased urbanization, ecological challenges such as climate change and loss of biodiversity, and stress-related disorders globally posing a major threat to public health and wellbeing, the development of efficient multiple-use strategies for urban green spaces and infrastructures is of great importance. In addition to benefits such as climate and water regulation, food production, and biodiversity conservation, green spaces and features have been associated with various health and wellbeing outcomes from a psychological perspective. Research suggests links between exposure to green (...) environmental qualities and restoration from psycho-physiological stress and attention fatigue, promotion of physical activity, increased neighborhood satisfaction and even reduced mortality. Especially strong associations have been observed in urban and socio-economically challenged areas. Usually such salutogenic, i.e. health-promoting, effects are explained through theories related to the notion of biophilia, i.e. the idea that humans share innate tendencies to attend to natural environments and features that have been beneficial during evolution. This paper assumes an ecological approach to perception and behavior to be fruitful in order to analyze the salutogenic potential of environments such as urban green spaces and to step beyond the “green vs. gray” dichotomy that has been prevalent through much of the research on health-promoting environments. Through an analysis of environmental affordances for certain perceived qualities such an approach is explored through a proposed concept for urban green space use and management, the edible forest garden. Such gardens, based on agroecological principles, have emerged as one of the most promising models regarding ecologically sustainable food production. In addition to potential contributions of importance for urban sustainability and biodiversity, we argue that the inclusion of edible forest gardens in urban green spaces – today globally dominated by lawns – also potentially could reinforce several affordances of salutogenic importance, both in terms of e.g. social cohesion but also in regard to restoration from psycho-physiological stress and attention fatigue. Increased opportunities for contact with nature and processes of food production may also reinforce pro-environmental behaviors in the population and thus also affect long-term sustainability. (shrink)

I emphasize the difference between bioethics and sciences that are relevant to bioethics on the one hand and the lifeworld on the other hand, to which problems of bioethics apply. The difference between types of experience in the scientific realm and in the lifeworld is reflected by the different definitions of nature they tend to favor. Against this background, I will claim that the object domains of the natural and the artificial are indeed better separated in the context (...) of everyday perception than is commonly assumed in academic discourse. This capacity for differentiation in everyday contexts makes it possible to give weight to the positive connotations of naturalness used against technological interference in nature in the lifeworld discourse. I will start with some preliminary terminological and historical remarks. Then I will turn to possible scientific ways of separating the domains of the natural and the artificial. In everyday practice they usually can be neither reproduced nor understood. This situation has contributed to the need for an explanation of the moral appeal to naturalness that one encounters in the lifeworld. After a discussion of explanations that are given in the bioethical discourse, I will propose a lifeworld concept that allows for the use of a fundamental boundary between the natural and the artificial. (shrink)

Scholars have long noticed a discrepancy in the way non-Western and Western peoples conceptualize the scientific and religious worlds. Non-Western traditions and communities, such as of India, are better positioned to provide an alternative to the Western dualistic thinking of separating science and religion. The Himalayan Environmental Studies and Conservation Organization was founded by Dr. Anil Joshi in the 1970s as a new movement looking at the economic and development needs of rural villages in the Indian Himalayas, and encouraging them (...) to use local resources in order to open up new avenues to self-reliance. This book argues that the concept of dharma, the law that supports the regulatory order of the universe in Indian culture, can be applied as an overarching term for HESCO s socio-economic work. This book presents the social-environmental work in contemporary India by Dr. Anil Joshi in the Himalayas and by Baba Seechewal in Punjab, combining the ideas of traditional and scientific ecological knowledge systems. Based on these two examples, the book presents the holistic model transcending the dichotomies of nature vs. culture and science vs. religion, especially as practiced and utilized in the non-Western society such as India. Using the example of HESCO, the book highlights that the very categories of religion and science are problematic when applied to non-Western traditions but that Western technologies can be radically transformed through integration with regional legacies to enable the flourishing of a multiplicity of knowledge-traditions and the societies that depend upon them. It will be of interest to students and scholars of South Asian Studies, Religion, Environmental Studies, Himalayan Studies, and Development Studies. ". (shrink)

Taking the animal and the machine as two ontological others of the human, this paper looks into how they “are added to” and “replace” the humanist others based on race, gender, class, etc. in contemporary cinema. This “supplement” urges us to reframe identity politics and cultural studies in a larger “polis” emerging between and encompassing both the human world, which becomes ever more globally homogenized, and its radical environment, natural or technological. The topic is a global cinematic phenomenon that (...) even local films directly embody. The animal is captured on the boundaries between “the symbolic” and “the real,” between “the actual” and “the virtual” in the artistic works of Werner Herzog, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, and Peter Greenaway. The machine convolutes the issues of informatics, embodiment, and cyborgism, often through SF fantasy that pervades Hollywood blockbusters and Japanimation. The rare amalgam of animal–machine receives further attention in David Cronenberg's films, and becoming-animal/-machine in Avatar empowers the human in the posthuman sense of biopower that transforms the body and registers it on a larger network. From this perspective, discourses on the animal (zooesis) and technology (technesis) work together to bring a new political potential. Animality and technology no longer form a naïve dichotomy of nature vs. civilization but combine in ways of making more visible the new condition of life. It unfolds in a cinematic “zone,” an ephemeral “clearing” for “bare life” within the globalized world. This zone exists in the exceptional state of temporary potential to de-/repoliticize any humanistic politics. (shrink)

Moving from a behavioral definition of intelligence, which describes it as the ability to adapt to the surrounding environment and deal effectively with new situations (Anastasi, 1986), this paper explains to what extent the performance obtained by ChatGPT in the linguistic domain can be considered as intelligent behavior and to what extent they cannot. It also explains in what sense the hypothesis of decoupling between cognitive and problem-solving abilities, proposed by Floridi (2017) and Floridi and Chiriatti (2020) should be interpreted. (...) The problem of symbolic grounding (Harnad, 1990) is then addressed to show the problematic relationship between ChatGPT and the natural environment, and thus the impossibility for it to understand the symbols it manipulates. To explain the reasons why ChatGPT does not succeed in this task, an investigation is carried out and a possible solution to the problem in the artificial domain is proposed by making a comparison with the natural ability of living beings to ground their own meanings from some basic cognitive-sensory aspects, which, it is explained, are directly related to the emergence of self-awareness in humans. Thus, the question is raised whether a possible and concrete solution to the Symbol Grounding Problem would involve in the artificial domain the development of cognitive abilities fully comparable to those of humans. Finally, I explain the difficulties that would have to be overcome before such a level could be reached, since human cognitive capacities are intimately linked to intersubjectivity and intercorporeality. (shrink)

This study analyzes the cognitive and discursive process through which the issue of learning from the West is addressed in four of People's Republic of China founder Mao Zedong's political speeches – On New Democracy (1940), On Coalition Government (1945), On the Ten Major Relationships (1956), and Conversation with Musicians (1956). The study adopts a critical discourse analysis (CDA) perspective and utilizes blending theory to investigate the metaphorical conceptualizations Mao uses to cope with the cultural dilemma of learning from the (...) West. The study finds that the focus in Mao's conceptualizations is not on a ‘positive Us’ vs. ‘negative Them’ dichotomy between Chinese and Western cultures, but on a good vs. bad dichotomy inside Western culture, implying that only certain parts of Western culture should be (selectively) emulated. While the natural compatibility between Western culture and Chinese society is constructed as out of the question, the possibility of compatibility after human effort is not rejected: the selected part of Western culture should be transformed to serve a new socialist culture in China. In this process, the agency and rational thinking of the Chinese are emphasized. (shrink)

1Preface: Malthus the Utilitarian vs. Malthus the Christian moral thinker. The chapter aims at reconstructing the deadlocks of Malthus scholarship concerning his relationship to utilitarianism. It argues that Bonar created out of nothing the myth of Malthus’s ‘Utilitarianism’, which carried, in turn, a pseudo-problem concerning Malthus’s lack of consistency with his own alleged Utilitarianism; besides it argues that such misinterpretation was hard to die and still persists in Hollander’s reading of Malthus’s work. ● -/- 2 Eighteenth-century Anglican ethics. The chapter (...) gives an overview of eighteenth-century Anglican ethics, noticing how the Cambridge tradition gave special weight to natural theology as opposed to positive or revealed theology and how two Cambridge fellows, John Gay and Thomas Brown worked out a kind of a rational-choice account of the origins of natural laws, where a law-giver God chooses among a number of possible sets of laws on the basis of a maximizing criterion, happiness for his creatures. ● -/- 3 Malthus’s meta-ethics. The chapter reconstructs the two ethical chapters of the second Essay. It argues that Malthus’s ethics is not dependent on Paley’s, but is derived from Cumberland, Butler, Gay, Brown. Besides, it argues that theodicy takes a new place in the 1803 Essays and ethics becomes a key to theodicy. The new solution is that, once it has been proved that passions can be mastered and that a world where passions are under control would be a comparatively happy place, a society where moral restraint prevailed would make the middling ranks more numerous, reduce dependence, and preserve liberty. ● -/- 4 Malthus’s early normative ethics: a morality of freedom. The chapter reconstructs young Malthus’s views on the foundations of ethics, proving his adhesion to voluntarist consequentialism. Then it reconstructs his treatment of political issues, whence a clear stance emerges in favour of traditional Whig concerns, such as political freedom, personal independence and dignity. Finally, it gives a fresh look at the theological argument in the two well-known final chapters, locating it in the context of consequentialism, voluntarism, and quasi-Leibnizian theodicy. ● -/- 5 Malthus’s intermediate normative ethics: a morality of prudence. Malthus’s normative ethics focuses on two main ‘natural’ virtues, benevolence and chastity, and three artificial virtues. These include love for equality and love for liberty. A special place is granted to another virtue, prudence, which is the link between natural and artificial virtues. This special virtue also provides an invisible link between the private and the public domains, in that it contributes to combine self-love with general happiness. This is granted by the unintended results mechanism, or “the happiness of the whole is to be the result of the happiness of individuals, and to begin first with them. No cooperation is required”. ● -/- 6 Malthus’s mature normative ethics: a morality of humanity. The chapter describes reactions by Evangelicals, such as Gisborne, Sumner, and Chalmers, to Malthus’s theory and Malthus’s transformation of his own system in order to pave objections. This amounts to incorporating The Evangelicals’ ideas into his own system. The friendly controversy with his Evangelical fellow-travellers yielded several important changes in 1806, 1817, and 1826 editions of the second Essay in the formulation of Malthusian ethics, in the adoption of moral improvement instead of happiness as the variable to be maximised, in the adoption of generalized education as the main weapon in the war on poverty. ● -/- 7 Malthus’s applied ethics. The chapter reconstructs Malthus’s treatment of a few issues in ‘applied ethics’, sexual morality, public morality, poverty, and besides, war and slavery. On the first issue, he argues the duty to marry only at a time when one is ready to carry the burden of six children as a moral duty imposed by prudence and rejects birth control because of its alleged effect of encouraging ‘indolence’. On the second issue, he defends a peculiar kind of Whiggism as anti-Machiavellian politics centred on rights, equality, and dignity. On the third issue, his final approach is a kind of Institutional approach to poverty, making room for generalized basic education, free markets for labour and allowing for a subsidiary role for private beneficence. The goal to be aimed at is bringing about circumstances which tend to elevate the character of the lower classes of society and offer them a chance of being respectable, virtuous and happy. ● -/- 8 Conclusions: strengthening the theological foundation. Malthus’s criteria for policy appraisal were not utilitarian ones. His normative ethics and his politics were sharply different from Bentham’s. Utility is just one element in Malthus’s ethics, going with laws of nature and rights, and ironically, far from being a Benthamite insertion, is the most markedly theological element in Malthus’s system of ideas. ● -/- . (shrink)

This article aims to explain the behaviour of public intellectuals, celebrities, and media audiences in the construction of anti-emotional narratives in the online culture wars. In the investigation of how these narratives are constructed on YouTube, the article focuses on the rhetorical juxtaposition of rationality and emotionality surrounding the viral argument between public intellectual Sam Harris and Hollywood star Ben Affleck on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, uploaded to YouTube. The video is an apt example of the positioning dynamics (...) on YouTube, where an increased integration of media content with its context of reception unsettles the positioning process by which the authority of both intellectuals and celebrities is negotiated and culture war narratives constructed. In conclusion, the article reflects on the relationship between the increasingly affective nature of online communication and the simultaneous emergence of a strict dichotomy between rationality and emotionality in anti-woke culture war narratives. (shrink)

In this article, the results of conceptualization of the definition of mind as an object of interdisciplinary applied research are described. The purpose of the theoretical analysis is to generate a methodological discourse suitable for a functional understanding of the mind in the context of the problem of natural language processing as one of the components of developments in the field of artificial intelligence. The conceptual discourse was realized with the help of the author's method of structural-ontological analysis, (...) and developed in the mainstream of the system-methodological tradition of the school of G.P. Shchedrovitsky and intended for descriptive research of subject areas of interdisciplinary objects of scientific study. As a result of the structural and ontological analysis of the super-system, the relevant place and role of the directly studied system (mind) are determined, and its primary process and material are localized and structural and functional connections are described. At the basic level, the mind is conceptualized as an energy process unfolding in a spatio-temporal environment and accompanied by archetypal structuring of neural impulses into images. The genesis of the system is separately analyzed by constructing a structural-ontological matrix that reflects the initial stage of the development of the mind. The primary process is concretized with the help of hetero- and homeostatic dichotomy, and also the most significant features of the consistent transformation of the material of the system and its ascent to verbal morphology are described. The structural-ontological comparison of the functioning of the verbal intelligence with the preverbal level has been carried out. The transformation of neural impulses of needs into words, as verbal units fixing semiotic values is analyzed. Structural-ontological connections that determine the reactive and prospective characteristics of the functioning of the system are disclosed. The position of the chronological primacy of "semiotic readiness" for language with respect to the debut of the latter as an information-sign model of the environment is argued. The hypothesis of domination at the initial stage of the development of the mind of exopsychic functions over endopsychic ones is formulated. The theoretical substantiation of the hypothesis of the inevitability of the ontology of language in the functional understanding of the mind is given, corresponding structural and ontological arguments are given, including those based on the ideas about the information relationship between affects and needs, according to the views of P.V. Simonov. The arguments are presented in favor of the non-alternative methodology of A. Turing in studies of artificial intelligence. (shrink)